Theresa May needs to join world leaders pressuring Trump on climate change at the G20 summit

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Well, at least the handshake went well. Vladimir Putin, something of a strong man himself, managed to escape injury when he met Donald Trump for the first time during the G20 summit. Previous handshaking encounters have proved less happy, resulting variously in visible anguish (the Japanese Prime Minister) to no handshake at all (the German Chancellor). Much obviously rides on the personal chemistry between the two men, whatever the precise truth about the Russia’s intervention in last year’s American presidential election (a topic that will not be explored during their conversations).

From Syria and the wider Middle East to Korea and the threat both nations perceive of Chinese expansionism in East Asia, there is much for the two men to argue about. With luck, they may be able to work together on some of these threats to world peace and indeed the future of the planet.

It is too much to expect, however, that there will be a meeting of minds on climate change. Long one of the world’s most careless of pouters, not least during the Soviet era, Russia today possesses something of an environmental conscience. So too does China, with a similarly disgraceful record on the environment, and most of the European Union. Chancellor Angela Merkel has made plain both her determination, as G20 host, to re-establish climate change as a urgent priority on the world agenda, and to build alliances with anyone prepared to pursue the goal of preserving life on Earth into the 22nd century and beyond.

She is too shrewd a character to expect that the Paris Accord on Climate Change, disowned by Mr Trump, will be fully resurrected, but her position as de facto leader of the West, her political seniority and being in charge of the most successful major economy in the world gives her a great deal of clout. She and her team will be working hard to make sure that President Trump’s adamant defiance of science and the wellbeing of Planet Earth is shown up for what it is, and she will this time be able to call on China, Brazil, India and Russia as well as the EU to put pressure on Mr Trump to clean up America’s act. He is a stubborn man who obviously doesn’t take criticism well, so the effort is unlikely to work, but at least some countries are doing the right thing.

So much more of a pity, then, that Theresa May is so reluctant to join the group presently ganging up on Mr Trump. As has been apparent for some time, virtually everything the British Government does here and abroad is geared to the reality of Brexit, and that includes putting trade with the US above anything else. It is certainly in Britain’s national interest to do so, even if the policy priorities are unspoken and unacknowledged. However, the UK also has a vital national interest in having air fit to breathe, water fit to drink and a planet not about to be destabilised and submerged by the unknowable effects of rapid man made climate change.

Ms May is trying to build some sort of rapport with Mr Trump, which is a task few would relish, but she should be honest with our closest ally that we think that America should respond to those they share Earth with.